Tania Hernández Velasco is a Mexican film director, producer, and editor. Her short films have screened at several international film festivals, including ZagrebDox and San Sebastian International Film Festival. “Titixe” is her first feature. She programs for Los Cabos International Film Festival.

“Titixe” will screen at the 2019 Full Frame Film Festival on April 6.

W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.

THV: “Titixe” follows the last attempt of a Mexican family—my family—to cultivate their small plot of land. It is a playful and nostalgic exploration of a landscape where bean sprouts dance to norteña songs, clouds possess a secret language, trees are submerged in mourning, and the ghostly presence of the last peasant of the family, my grandfather, is deeply felt.

W&H: What drew you to this story?

THV: Eight years ago, my grandfather confessed to me that it pained him that none of his grandchildren had developed any curiosity about his lifetime work cultivating the fields. I was about to begin studying documentary then, and I proposed to him that we made a film together on his land.

Unfortunately, time passed, and we could not make the project when he was alive. After his death four years ago, this promise took weight in me, and I decided to commence the film even in his absence.

W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?

THV: Through the making of this film I recognized a part of my identity that had been neglected while growing up in Mexico City: a beautiful and powerful rural worldview that my family — until my generation—possessed.

I hope the film raises questions about how globally extended paradigms of progress and social success have excluded other forms of knowledge and understanding of the world. For some of us, tracing a way back to these mindsets is just a conversation with our parents—or grandparents—away.

W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?

THV: I began the film with a bunch of intuitions, but what I was certain about was that besides directing, I had to take on producing and doing the cinematography to grant intimacy in my approach. This decision allowed me to discover the film with joy and at my own rhythm. When I began editing, a process that took more than two years, this one-woman show became very challenging.

I had to find the adequate distance as a filmmaker from my family and myself in the images. At times this process was painful and full of self-doubt, but collaborating with co-editor Eduardo Palenque helped me obtain a more critical view of the material and separate the things I loved from the things that really pushed the film forward.

W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.

THV: The film commenced as a family initiative, where I had the absolute support of my mother, my father, and my grandmother. My father would drive us on weekends to the town in his van, a good five hours away from Mexico City, and he would not let me pay for gas. My mother and grandmother would take care of our meals and we would stay in my grandma’s house. They would all help me with production details and keep me company while shooting. I am extremely lucky.

I used my own equipment: A Canon 60D with a few lenses, a Zoom audio recorder, and some mics. Mariana Rodriguez Alcocer, direct sound recorder and sound designer, joined me in the last part of the shooting, generously offering her free time [to the film].

We edited the film using only my personal computer and an old TV screen, also in our free time, as it was difficult even to buy extra hard drives. At this point I realized I could not begin the post-production alone, and Películas Santa Clara and Diaspora Films joined. We completed the film with a lot of in-kind support from friends and some very limited cash we could invest.

W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

THV: When I was a teen, I was convinced that art, and film specifically, could “change the world.” I decided to study film with a completely idealist drive. Fifteen later I know it is not up to art to attempt this. Who am I to impose what the world should be if I’m just in the process of understanding myself?

Film for me now is just a precious opportunity to establish a connection with others, raise some questions and, hopefully, make something beautiful.

W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?

THV: The best advice I received was to be patient and take my limits as assets. With distance, I would not change the resources the film was produced with or the time it took to complete it.

I received several bad pieces of advice from people that would have wanted to see another film I could not—or did not want—to make, a more ethnographic or narrative film, for instance.

W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?

THV: Invest to have your own tools, even if they are limited, and lose fear of the [technology]. I know not all projects can begin as one-woman-shows, but to know you don’t have to depend on anyone else to experiment, fail, and discover a film at your own pace is priceless.

W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.

THV: “The House Is Black” by Forough Farrokhzad. This is such a timeless and poetic cinematic achievement. Farrokhzad was extremely skilled and sensitive at discovering light and beauty without overlooking great suffering in a leper colony. This film is also a kind of self-portrait, where she managed to expose her intimacy without eclipsing each of the people who appear in the film. Her voice is truly unique.

W&H: It’s been a little over a year since the reckoning in Hollywood and the global film industry began. What differences have you noticed since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements launched?

THV: A couple of days ago, the Mexican answer to the #MeToo movement emerged through the initiative of a brave group of women in film, literature, journalism, etc., denouncing abuses perpetrated by men in these environments. The testimonies are heartbreaking, and they are just the tip of the iceberg of issues we have normalized for far too long. This has demanded both women and men in the film industry to take a personal stance.

It remains to be seen what specific policies Mexican institutions, production companies, film festivals, universities, etc. will implement, but for now one extremely valuable thing has been obtained: a precious sense of sorority and community that as a woman filmmaker allows you to feel a little less vulnerable.